You can ask on the WordPress support forums for some help. Or you could email the developer for some help. You might get some help. But what if you don’t get any help? You’ll probably need to pay for some help from a techie or a developer.

But what does it feel like to be the developer of a free WordPress plugin? Read on to find out more…

From a user’s point of view

Having access to lots of wonderful free plugins, WordPress SEO, Advanced Custom Fields, WP Super Cache, and more, is a massive benefit of using WordPress. The best plugins will save you hours of work and effort.

So, free plugins are useful.

From a developer’s point of view

A while ago, I released WP Portfolio (for showing off a portfolio of your websites). It’s had over 72,000 downloads since release, and took over 120 hours of development. Pretty impressive, but still modest by all accounts compared to WordPress SEO and others.

As a plugin developer, you get the following

• The odd donation here or there. Currently representing about 0.005% of the total downloads for me personally.
• Several messages and emails demanding that I change something or fix someone’s website using the plugin (for free) – even if the issue has nothing to do with the plugin.
• The odd few messages with pure abuse.
• Messages complaining about my plugin (when, in fact, they were using someone else’s plugin.

A large number of WordPress plugin users expect a developer to help them for free. Despite paying no money for the plugin, and the users are often making money from their website (as a business or affiliate).

Us developers still have a limited amount of time. And we still have to pay our bills. Being taken for granted is a massive demotivated, and therefore reduces the drive we have to keep the plugins updated and current.

So what’s the point of this article…?

This is not meant to be whining email, it’s more about helping you to appreciate the free plugin developers so that they continue to release new plugins and support the existing ones.

How can you appreciate free plugin developers?

• Send them a message to just say thank you.
• Give their plugin a 5-star review on WordPress.org
• Send them a donation, even if it’s just 10 or £5 – to say thanks. The sentiment means a great deal to developers.
• Purchase their premium version of the plugin (if they offer one)
• Purchase any Add-Ons they have of the plugin (if they offer any)
• If you want a new feature, offer to pay for them to add it.

You don’t have to spend money to appreciate a plugin developer. But if you can afford to do so, please consider it.

As much as we might not want to, we all judge a book by its cover. It doesn’t matter how good we are in business, if we don’t look competent, professional and appealing to our customers, then we’re missing out on opportunities. Let me explain this with an example…

An Example

When I was at a conference in Leeds at the beginning of the month, I was out in the city looking for something interesting to eat. My wife spotted a place called Charcoal Inn (previously called Ayra), which is a Persian restaurant.

I had already dismissed the restaurant, as I thought it was just a highstreet fast-food kebab shop. However on closer inspection, the restaurant was a blend between a cafe and a restaurant, serving very interesting Persian food.

Now don’t get me wrong, they did serve shish kebabs. But they were the best tasting kebabs I’d ever had. They were not served in pitta bread, but on a bed of rice, with salad. We also had a starter which was a range of Persian dips with their homemade flatbread. The food and service was amazing. However, the front of the restaurant didn’t make that obvious at all.

The photo of the actual restaurant is at the top of this article. To be fair, it’s a reasonable photo, it doesn’t quite show you what I saw when I had dismissed the restaurant.

What’s the lesson?

If nobody knows how good you are at what you do with your business, or if you give the wrong impression, you’re missing opportunities for new clients and customers.

Something that you could fix with the way you dress, or with testimonials, or with a new website design, or an improved shop-front, or just better photos of your products on your website.

What can you change about the way you do things to give the right impression?

This week, I was asked a question by someone who uses WordPress for their blog. Sheryl asked me “What is a pingback? And should I approve them?”

So I’m going to describe what a pingback is using as little technical language as possible.

Let’s start with Comments

When you publish a blog article, you’ve probably noticed that visitors can leave comments on your articles. Healthy discussion about your articles can be great for your blog. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get any. You tend to only get comments on certain types of blog posts anyway.

Now, most comments are spammy, so you’ll want to mark those comment as spam. However, a few of them will be genuine and interesting.

Pingbacks

Pingbacks (also known as trackbacks) are a form of automated comment for a page or post, created when another WordPress blog links to that page or post.

When you publish a new blog post, WordPress attempts to ‘ping‘ all the sites that were linked to in your post. i.e. Your WordPress website is informing other websites that you’ve linked to them.

When you receive pingpacks, then it means someone else has linked to one of your posts or pages.

Pingbacks – The Benefit?

You know when someone has linked to you. That’s the only benefit.

Should you approve pingbacks?

No, as there’s no benefit to you whatsoever. If you do approve them, a link is created back to the linking website, but it’s a worthless link from the perspective of the search engines.

Additionally, pingback comments offer nothing for your readers. Approved pingback comments look terrible. Another reason to delete them.

Pingback Spam

Once upon a time, when pingback links did offer value in terms of the search engines, there was a surge in software designed to create fake pingbacks just to get links. (Fake in that there was no real website linking to you). This goes on a little bit these days, but has mostly gone away.

In Summary

Pingbacks offer no value if they are approved, just delete them. They are useful for knowing if someone links to you, but that’s it.

I hope that helps!

When using other business services or even when I’ve been asked to give feedback, I encounter a range of website mistakes. Most people use the web these days, so business owners should know better. So this article combines them all into mistakes that I’m still spotting even in 2013!

1. No Website (still!)

Yep, I’m not even kidding! So many businesses still do not have a website. I’ve noticed that it tends to be businesses that are

A) not making a great deal of money or
B) or the business (or business owner) is no-technical (e.g. painters, decorators, builders, etc).

Don’t get me wrong, having a website developed can be very expensive. However, even a basic 2-3 web page can be very cheap with a little research.

2. It’s not clear what you do

There are some business websites that I visit, that even with 10-20 seconds of looking at the page, I have no idea what they do! You want visitors to know within 2-3 seconds what your business is, without scrolling down the page.

Unless a visitor knows that your website is relevant to them, they will leave. This can be achieved using a combination of example images, clear branding, a logo that relates to your business, a smart tagline explaining your category of one and introductory paragraphs.

3. Your website hasn’t been updated in YEARS

If your website hasn’t been updated in a while, visitors will wonder if you’re still in business or it will sabotage any claims you might make about being current, modern, contemporary, organised and fresh.

Evidence of your website not being updated could include:

• Old dates in the copyright footer (how to have an up-to-date footer date with WordPress)
• Details of awards that are only from 3+ years ago.
• Photos showing things that have changed substantially
• References to long-gone politicians and celebrities
• A blog where the most recent article was 1+ years ago.
• A very dated design

These are all pretty easy to fix, with the exception of a redesign. If your website looks dated, I suspect you’re losing a certain amount of business. So ensuring your website looks relatively current is worthwhile.

4. No testimonials

Testimonials offer something called social proof, which essentially offers evidence from other people saying how good your products and services are.

A website visitor will be highly suspicious of anything you say on your website (they are assuming you’ll say anything to make a sale). Testimonials provide a way to show what other people think of you, which is generally more trusted. That’s why the world of online reviews has become such a big deal in the last 3 years.

Most business websites will have:

• No testimonials at all
• A single page of old testimonials
• Testimonials that have no photos or website links, that completely made up!

You need to have high quality testimonials that are spread throughout your website, with photos, links to the person’s website and their business details.

If you use WordPress, then we’ve just launched a new Testimonial plugin for WordPress that’s designed for business owners who are not technical.

5. No buttons to share a page on social media…

Frankly, if you don’t have social media sharing buttons on your website, you’re completely bonkers!

The social media sharing buttons make it as easy as possible to share your article, as all sharing can be done within 1-2 clicks! Why wouldn’t you want this? You get more exposure, for free!

6. Where’s the personality?

The old saying goes “people buy from people”. Having photos of your business team on your website injects personality. You’ll be surprised just how many people will check out the About page to be nosey!

A business that’s great with team photos is Rackspace. You’ll see lots of photos of their team throughout the website. They set a great example!

7. You’re not capturing any leads…

And finally, lead capture. Debatably the most important part of your website. By capturing the details of visitors (usually a name and email address), you can continue the conversation with them.

The idea is that you can share lots of value, maybe a special offer or two, and that they’ll eventually become your customers. Without any method to capture vistor details, then you’re wasting an opportunity to get some business further down the line.

To get them on your list, offer a great little bribe, such as a free ebook download. They should not need to make a purchase to get value from your freebie. It should be completely free.

In Summary

So, to conclude… have a website that makes it clear what you do, is updated regularly, shares credible testimonials throughout the site, with social media sharing buttons, photos of your team, and a way to opt-in to your list to allow you to continue the conversation with them.

We’re not perfect, we could do with a little more effort on #6, but hey… it’s a start!

What item do you know you should fix?

Basically, WordPress 3.5 and up uses a new script that removes functionality that some of your whizzy features rely on. The plugins and aspects of your theme that use this functionality need updating to cope. However, doing this does require some technical ability.

From this point on, it gets technical, and is provided to help your web developer sort it out for you.

Techie Bits

If you take a closer look at your javascript errors in the javascript console (Firefox and Chrome are good for this), you’ll probably see this error:
[javascript]Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘msie’ of undefined[/javascript]

The new version of WordPress now uses the latest version of jQuery, i.e. v1.9, which removes functionality that checks the browser type. Very annoying indeed. jQuery V1.9 came out on 15th Jan 2013, which is when problems started appearing.

The Hard Fix (but ideal)

Upgrade the plugins or javascript that relies on this old code. Since many plugin developers take a while to catch up, you might be waiting a while. However, you’ll probably have to update the theme code if tabs or sliders are hard-coded into the theme.

The Easy Fix

You can put back the code that those plugins need, by using this code that you put into functions.php. I’ve tested this code on 2 different websites, and it fixes the jQuery legacy issue.

[php]// Fixes jQuery 1.9 legacy code issue
function jquery_legacy_code() {
if (!is_admin()) {
wp_enqueue_script(
‘jquery_legacy_code’,
‘http://code.jquery.com/jquery-migrate-1.0.0.min.js’,
array(‘jquery’)
);
}
}
add_action(‘init’, ‘jquery_legacy_code’);
[/php]

If there’s a better fix, please let me know. This is a working solution, so hopefully it saves you a few hours of headaches!

If you know me, you’ll know that I’d have much preferred to just restore a website from a backup than have to charge someone lots of money to do a repair. It’s not a matter of laziness, it’s just that it could have been avoided.

Photo Credit: Smashed Screen by Amanda Tetrault.

So what’s the painful truth?

1) Pretty much all website hosting companies claim that they do full backups. What they don’t tell you (from experience of 20+ hosting companies):

1. Either that they back up only once a week or less
2. Or: Is that they can’t restore just a small part of your website (e.g. folders or a database)

Now there are some exceptions to this. There are some fantastic hosting companies. You don’t typically find out until it’s too late though.

2) If you run a WordPress website (or other website that’s more complex than just HTML files), then some day your website may get hacked

With all of the security in the world, there’s a distinct chance that your website may get hit. It’s not a nice experience, but it does happen. (It’s happend to me lots of times).

You can speculate on the motivations on people who crack websites all you like. Sadly, it still happens.

Do your own backups…

So you should have your own backups (regardless of what your hosting company does – Two backups are better than none). There are many different ways to backup your WordPress website. Even if you don’t have the technical ability to restore your website, it does mean that someone technical can get your website running quickly with full recent backups.

The one constant with people who have their website hacked is the stress of it. Having a recent backup reduces this stress considerably.

Backup Solutions

There are lots of other services like BackupPress or VaultPress, so it’s worth trying them to find one you like. If you’re not technical or want peace of mind, then use the backup services. They cost money, but if your website is part of your business, it’s money well-spent.

If you’re more technical, look at cPanel backups or BackupBuddy. (Incidentally, BackupBuddy is great for migrating websites from one server to another).

Whatever service or tool you use, please backup your website! :)

This is my T-Shirt that says “Grabbing the balls of WordPress and making it cough since 2010″. It’s a little cheeky, it’s slightly amusing, and it’s different.

However, I’ve already spotted a couple of people copying my idea (IT companies strangely enough – similar humour methinks). I’m already working on something different that stands out from them too! :)

When you’re doing business networking, what are you doing to be different and memorable?

Once installed, the Copify plugin requires that you have a Copify account first, which I’ve had for a while now. You’ll also need some credit.

Installing the plugin is no different to any other WordPress plugin. You can install directly from WordPress as usual. You then need to copy your account API key from the main Copify website, into the settings of the plugin. This takes seconds, and is very easy.

1. Creating an order

Copify – Ordering a job

Creating an order is very simple, you just choose your title, content category, word count, quality level, and your requirements. The requirements are incredibly important, and it pays to be clear and detailed.

From my experience of content writers, do not expect them to do quality research. It’s better to get the research done elsewhere, and then provide that research for the writer. The writer will do a far better job of writing the article if you can point to specific information that you want them to use in your article.

Plugin Suggestion: There are a lot of categories to search through. Having a search for categories using AJAX would be much quicker and easier to use. Currently, it’s a time consuming finding the right category.

2. Place the order

Once the order has been placed, you’ll see the article as being open on the summary page.

Copify – Job Summary – Open Jobs

Once your article is complete, you’ll receive an email that it’s been completed. You’ll also see that it’s complete in the summary page.

Copify – Job – Summary – Complete

Copify Menu Suggestion

Plugin Suggestion: Use the normal WordPress count in the admin menu to show that an article is pending approval. In the same way as plugin updates and comments. This makes it an obvious visual cue that something needs doing.

3. Approve the written article

Approving an article is really easy. The interface is actually really good, as you can easily view the original brief to check the finished article against your requirements. This article was excellent (content hidden in screenshot), so I just needed to approve it. The ‘Approve & Move to Drafts’ is a nice touch, as you know exactly what’s going to happen.

Copify – Reviewing an article

4. Give the writer some feedback…

Finally, give the writer a rating on the article quality. Since the article was fine, I didn’t need to request a re-write and therefore the feedback I had for the writer was 5-stars.

Copify – Author Feedback

5. The verdict?

Actually, the plugin is exceptionally well-written from a usability point of view. The plugin worked as expected, and didn’t cause any issues that I could see. Copify is an excellent writing service, ideal if you want top-quality content. So it’s great to have a fully integrated solution within your WordPress blog, saving the hassle of having to copy and paste articles between platforms. Only a couple of suggestions for the interface, which I’ve already covered.

Nice work guys!

Premium themes are all-inclusive, polished themes designed to work on your WordPress blog. They aren’t insanely expensive, and will often provide you with a lot of added benefits which you simply won’t get with free themes. Some will include things like support for social media buttons and advertising space. Some premium themes will give you multiple page layouts and increasingly support for mobile devices.

Getting a bespoke WordPress theme developed may cost anywhere between £500 to £5,000. Buying a Premium theme will cost around £40 to £50. Using a premium theme is a great way to get cracking with a great design. Clearly, if you want to do anything specific with your website, then you will need bespoke development services (like the ones we offer).

Another massive benefit of buying a Premium Theme is the support you will receive with it. Using a free theme may be great, but should something go wrong, you’ll be left out in the cold to work out the issue yourself. With a premium theme, the developer will be able to help you out if you encounter a problem.

So to help you on your journey of finding a great premium theme, here are 15 websites that offer premium WordPress themes, plus 3 directories of premium themes. Enjoy!

Premium Theme Sites

A group of websites which allow you to find and/or buy premium themes.

ElegantThemes

http://www.elegantthemes.com/

ElegantThemes offer a range of 75 themes - but you can join a subscription for under £25 a year and have complete access to all of them. That works out at just over 30p per theme! You will also receive theme updates and technical support perpetually. They have a beautiful user-friendly website which makes it simple to view screenshots and use a live demo of the theme.

KreativeThemes

http://www.kreativethemes.com/

You can get a theme from KreativeThemes for as little as £18. With every theme you will get a custom-built options panel, full documentation and excellent support. The live theme demos run very well, giving you a perfect preview of how it will behave when you buy and use it. They only have nine themes, but they are very well crafted.

Mojo Themes

http://www.mojo-themes.com/categories/wordpress/

Mojo Themes have over 360 WordPress themes for you to choose from. To make previewing them simple, you can see a screenshot of the theme in action just by hovering over its thumbnail. They also offer a live demo of the theme, with a rich variety of content so it looks as real as possible. Most themes are about £24, although there are some as cheap as only £2.50! When buying a theme, you will receive detailed instructions on how to install it and 24/7 support. This site is definitely worth a look.

PandaThemes

http://pandathemes.com/

PandaThemes has nine powerful themes at around £25 each, all of which come with menu types, shortcodes, easy custom styling, documentation and lifetime support. They can also customise a theme specifically for you if necessary. PandaThemes offer a "5 in 1 Package" which gives you access to five of their best themes at £60, 50% off.

Theme Forest

http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress

Theme Forest host over 2000 WordPress themes. They display a preview of theme when you hover over the item, and also give you an excellent live demo of the theme. The majority of their themes are about £25, with a varying price range depending on how feature-filled you want your theme.

Theme Junkie

http://www.theme-junkie.com/

Theme Junkie have a collection of 27 themes. You can buy a theme for £25, which comes with 2 bonus themes, free updates and bug fixes, and access to the support forum. For not much more, you can buy access to their entire collection of 27 themes, which will also grant you access to any new themes they release. The themes themselves are versatile and varied, and the live theme demo is highly usable.

InkThemes

http://www.inkthemes.com/wp-themes/

InkThemes have a collection of 21 amazing themes. Each theme is £29 on its own, although you can buy the entire collection for just £80. All themes have a trial download, and a "1-click install" feature, making it incredibly simple to test, install and use them. The demos of the themes have multiple live examples available. Most themes have a full control panel, shortcodes, different colour skins and theme-specific widgets.

ColorLabs

http://colorlabsproject.com/

ColorLabs have a nice collection of 60 premium WordPress themes. Most are £31, at which price you will receive lots of useful features such as a responsive layout, SEO optimisation, easy updates, theme admin panel, custom shortcodes, standard templates and social network integration. There is comprehensive documentation, and theme support is available on working days.

Magazine3

http://magazine3.com

Magazine3 have a small collection of powerful versatile themes for around £31 each. They feature things like automatic thumbnailing, optimised SEO, theme specific control panels, slideshows and drag & drop menus. With each purchase, you also receive lifetime support and updates, documentation, tutorials and free installation. The more you pay, the more versatile the theme is.

ThemeFuse

http://themefuse.com/

ThemeFuse have a brilliant, easy-to-use site. The layout is easy to understand, and viewing options are nicely obvious. The live theme viewer is well made, and switching between themes is slick and simple. Most themes are less than £32.

Obox Design

http://www.obox-design.com/

Obex Design themes come with a custom built in framework called OCMX, which makes theme management phenomenally simple. It comes with font, gallery and advertisment management, built-in analytics and SEO optimisation, layout control and customised widgets. For £38 one-off-payment, you will receive theme updates, settings panel, support and 1 extra theme. The more you pay, the more features you will receive.

Templatic

http://www.templatic.com/

Templatic have a wide range of themes, with a large focus on usability for specific circumstances. Such cases include event management, e-commerce, reviews and mapping. Most themes are about £42. Templatic allows you to see large previews of themes side by side, which makes comparing and selecting themes a good deal easier. They also offer a live theme demo, allowing you to see and use the theme in action.

WooThemes

http://www.woothemes.com

WooThemes offers over 90 free and affordable premium themes, with at least one new theme released each month. On average, themes cost around £45, and all come with at least 2 bonus themes. WooThemes makes it easy for you to select and compare themes by showing you them all on one page. There is a live preview of the theme as well so you can try before you buy.

StudioPress

http://www.studiopress.com/themes

StudioPress provide you with a theme engine called the Genesis Framework. This is a strong foundation for all of their themes to run atop of, which gives built-in SEO optimisation, complex theme designs, built-in security, instant updates, support, tutorials and a variety of layouts and widgets. Themes cost around £16, and the Genesis Framework around £38. Together they come to only £51, but remember you only need to buy the framework once.

AppThemes

http://www.appthemes.com

AppThemes may have only five themes, but they are great themes. They are all-inclusive solutions for specific tasks such as business listings, job listings, quality control and advertisements, although they could be used for whatever you wish. The live theme demo even includes a WordPress Administration page, which you can use like a real installation. Each theme comes to £63.

Premium Theme Directories

There are also websites which list and review hundreds of WordPress themes.

Noupe - 50 Fantastic WordPress Themes from 2011 (blog)

http://www.noupe.com/wordpress/50-fantastic-premium-business-wordpress-themes-from-2011.html

This excellent blog post features some of the best premium business themes from 2011. The author has provided beautiful large screenshots of every theme, with pricing, links and a short review as well.

Premium WordPress (blog)

http://www.premiumwp.com/

Premium WordPress is a blog dedicated to listing directories of WordPress themes.

WPMeta

http://www.wpmeta.com/

WPMeta provides a nice integrated directory of themes using a very consistent interface. This makes it easy to view and compare themes and their features, and simple to buy them from the original site.

New WP Doctors Team Member – Farran Lee

Please welcome Farran to the team by leaving comments below. Bear in mind he’s got to put up with my unique sense of humour and questionable taste in music. :)